Muaic - Day 2

Last night's James Taylor tribute performance was excellent!  We had front row seats and he had the "look" as well as the mannerisms down pat.    He sang several of James' main hits, but the concert was over so quickly.  That is probably because these concerts are allocated 1 hour, and we're used to a full 2 1/2 hour concert.  Fortunately all future concerts start at 10:00pm, not 10:30, which was kinda late for us. 

We enjoyed breakfast with Chris Nole, who was John Denver's keyboard artist from 1994 until 1997 when John died.  Chris has become a good friend and we had a great conversation about his career and the possibility of any future concerts with him and Mack Bailey. 

After breakfast we got off the ship and walked around the Cozumel shopping area. When it started to get hot and muggy we headed back to the ship.

I thought I'd talk about the ship a bit today. Once nice thing about NCL is they have little fish in the carpet that they are always swimming toward the from the of ship.  That helps when finding your way around.

Speaking of getting around, by today we are pretty good at finding where we need to go.  If going for food, we turn right out of our cabin, if going to a show, turn left;  unless heading to a specialty restaurant, then we go left.  It's nice that nearly all our shows are in the same room on desk 6.   

The lower right picture is our cabin.  It's a bit smaller than we imagined but has a spacious bathroom and nice balcony.  A few things took some getting used to, like the closet very close to one side of the bed, but we have adapted. 

This afternoon we had a Name That Tune session.  15 short song segments were played and you needed to guess the song title and who sang it.  The first round was songs from the late 50's so we did not do too good, but in the second round, covering the early 60's, we came in second!  

After that was a sing-along session with mostly recognizable tunes, but a few new ones. 

The last event for the afternoon was where Jim and Ann Curry covered their history and how they got into singing John Denver music.   It was very insightful and we learned some interesting details of their background.  They played several John Denver songs along with one of their own compositions. 

We had a simple turkey dinner in the buffet tonight, so no food pictures today.

Tonight is a Carole King concert, but more about that tomorrow. 

Music - Day 1

Mary started out the day with this neat pre-sunrise picture.  We had a nice breakfast before we started out the day with the first of 5 scheduled activities on this first day of serious music events.

The first session was an overview of the events planned for this week.  After that came two early afternoon events about up-and-coming artists, and a first sing-along of the week.
Then came a session with the Neil Diamond artist.  He told about how he got started, and sang a few Neil Diamond songs that were about Neil's early career.  It was quite the engaging talk!

We enjoyed supper in the Italian specialty restaurant. We both had a spaghetti carbonara appetizer. For the main course Mary had salmon and I had lasagna followed by tiramisu for Mary and cannoli for me.

The last event of the day is a James Taylor concert  concert, but that doesn't start for another hour so I'll post about it tomorrow.

Heading out to Sea

 We had a good day today with clear weather.   We got to the ship with no issues and were quickly on board, at least once we got past the long line for security. We then ate lunch then walked around to learn about the layout of the ship. On embarkation day, NCL keeps the doors to the cabin hallways closed with a polite "Please do not enter" sign until the rooms are ready, so about 1pm we decided to wait for clearance to go to our cabin.   And we waited.. and waited.  Finally about 2pm they announced all cabins were ready.  One surprise was that our luggage was already in the hall outside out cabin! 

After unpacking, we headed up top for the Sail Away.  The ship turned around and then sailed past downtown New Orleans as we headed downstream. At one point, Jim Curry (who along with being the John Denver tribute singer is the main organizer of this cruise) stopped by and we chatted for a while. 

 It's amazing to see how the Mississippi River winds around. At one point it does a full 180 degree turn!  It's now been 5 hours and we are still a few hours away from the Gulf.

Tonight we have a Welcome Aboard party where we will meet our fellow music cruisers and find out more details about how to attend the shows.  I believe that about 200 of the 4200 people on board are part of our group. 

More to come tomorrow!

Music Cruise

Today Mary and I flew to New Orleans to be ready for a 7 day cruise on board the NCL Escape.  We depart tomorrow for a week filled with lots of music.  There are performances and presentations by tribute artists each day.  They will be singing songs made famous by Carole King, John Denver, Neil Diamond and James Taylor.  After the cruise we are seeing New Orleans, and especially looking forward to the National WWII Museum.

We had  a nice mid day, with a non-stop flight from Detroit to New Orleans and arrived a bit early.  The New Orleans airport looks very new.  The opened this new terminal just 4 years ago.  We were getting quite worried with all the TSA issues a few weeks ago, but today we breezed through security and saw no lines at either airport. 

So tonight we are taking it easy and get ready for the cruise tomorrow!  Looking forward to a fun week!

Cruise Day 8 - At Sea

 The Cruise Director has a daily TV show which contains a question, and he gives out a prize to a random winner who got it right.  Today my entry was selected and my prize is pictured on the right!  I'm not quite sure what to do with it, but I'll figure something out.

Today was our last full day on the ship.  Tomorrow we are supposed to be out of our cabins by 8:30 and we plan to exit the ship around 9:30 for our 10:00 Lyft ride back to the Orlando airport.  Our flight doesn't leave until 4pm so we'll have a lot of time in the airport. 

Today was Cake Day, where the pastry chefs show off.  Here are a lot of cake pictures that Mary took.

Warm up that sweet tooth!

After a nice prime rib dinner, for dessert we enjoyed Baked Alaska, which now has a new look as you can see on the left. 

After the traditional Baked Alaska parade, we headed to the Princess Theater for the production show Rock Opera.  I can't say I enjoyed the music very much, but it had some nice dance parts.  This is probably a show Mary and I will skip in the future. Princess seems to updating (modernizing?) all their production shows and we yearn for the old shows like "Do You Want to Dance" with their great songs.  

So that about does it for this cruise.  Hopefully nothing too exciting happens tomorrow as we head home.  Thanks for coming along with us!

Cruise Day 7 - Grand Turk

We had a sea day morning followed by a port day, since we did not arrive until noon.  Of course, Valentine's decorations abounded.  The cake display on the left was near the ship's atrium while the one on the right was on the island.  It looked a bit too permanent to be a valentines's day special.

The water here was extremely clear.  As we were docking, I looked down and could see rocks on the bottom which has to be close to 40' deep!

This port has built up a lot since we were last here in 2015 - wow has it really been 11 years?  The John Glenn/Mercury program exhibit was much improved and modernized.  It's located here because the prime landing zone for those flights was just off this island. 

We took it easy and watched a movie in the afternoon.  Mary got this sunset picture before the clouds closed in. They had the chocolate fountain going for dinner again tonight

Tomorrow is a sea day as we head back to Port Canaveral.  It's been a great cruise!

Cruise Day 6 - San Juan

We did not schedule any excursions in San Juan, preferring to walk around the town near the dock.   Since people could start going ashore by 8:00 am, when we left by 9:15 we had no lines and no crowds.  There were mobs of taxis at the end of the pier trying to sell city tours,  but we just wanted to do our own thing.  We were the only cruise ship in port at that time so they were eager for business.

Our first stop was a monument to Christopher Columbus (left)  we also saw the San Cristobol castle (right) before finding the street with all the souvenir stores (bottom left)

We walked on up that steep, one lane street to see more of the town, and eventually came to a quiet park with the monument on the right.  

Since it was rather hot, we headed back to the ship. Fortunately, that walk was all down hill. 

After a cooling swim in the pool it was time for lunch.

We had some quite time in the afternoon so Katie, Becca and I played some card games before watching the 4 pm sail away. Then we headed to dinner. We were surprised to see surf and turf on the menu on a non formal night. It was delicious!

Tonight's production show was a premier for this cast. It was called 5 Skies, and was nothing like any prior Princess production show we had seen, since it put you inside a video game with levels and battles against foes.   But I can truly say that the costumes were fantastic (see pictures) as the singers and dancers did a great job of telling the story. 

 Tomorrow we arrive at Grand Turk at noon.  I'm looking forward to seeing the John Glenn exhibit once again.

Cruise Day 5 - St Maarten

We got an early start this morning.  Lots of large cruise ships here today, including the monster, Star of the Seas with close to 7,000 passengers.  The Celebrity XCEL was here and shortly after us, the Enchanted Princess arrived.  That makes for about 17,000 passengers here today!  

The four of us walked around the shopping area at the pier. Katie and Becca bought t-shirts and a magnet.  Mary and I wanted to see the main part of Philipsburg so we took the water shuttle and enjoyed walking around and visiting some stores, including the Yoda Guy store which is run by a guy who did the creature effects design for the Star Wars movies.  Of course I did some more shopping at Cariloha, including a new golf shirt.  I love their bamboo clothing!

We headed back to the ship around 11:30, and when we saw the long lines waiting to take the water shuttle to town, we were very glad we headed to town early.  We were hot so I decided to cool off in the pool before getting a pizza lunch.  

These two pictures show you how picturesque the town of Philipsburg is from the sea.

After dinner in the buffet, Mary and I headed to the Dan Middleditich show.  He did an Elvis show last night and tonight's show was about the early pioneers of Rock music in the 50's and early 60's.   He is a VERY energetic performer and if he comes to a town hear you, I encourage you to go see his show.  

Tomorrow we head to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  Looks to be a hot day with a chance of rain. 

Cruise Day 4 - St Thomas

This morning we docked in St Thomas and our main objective was to take the Paradise Point Tram and do some shopping. 

It was cloudy as we pulled into the dock.  Note the Paradise Tram is in the top picture.

We got off the ship by 9:30 am and found the tram would not start until after 10:00 am.  Since it was a short wait and we could avoid long lines later on, we waited for it to open and were on the second group of cars heading to the top. I got a great picture of our ship from Paradise Point. 

After the tram ride we walked to the mall for some shopping.  Boy did it get hot n a hurry!  Katie and Becca bought a few souvenirs, and I bought a few bamboo clothing items at the Cariloha store before we headed back to the ship for lunch.

I played some Bocci in the afternoon, but once again did not win any prizes. 

It was Italian night in the restaurant and a few of us had Tiramisu for dessert.  

After that Mary and I watched Katie do some line dancing. I joined in on the last number, YMCA, and did not do very well but had fun. 

On to St Maarten tomorrow!

Cruise Day 3

We had another sea day today which turned out to be quite busy.  I did the passengers vs officers challenge in the morning.  It was a beanbag toss and, of course, the officers won easily with 6 of them  tossing multiple times vs a horde of passengers who only got to toss twice.   But it was still a lot of fun.

The Most Traveled Guest luncheon was fabulous! (Click any picture to make it larger.)  We had personalized menus and a full three course meal accompanied by wine which was way too much food compared to our typical lunches.  

Above right is the appetizer, fried mozzarella cheese with tomato sauce. On the left is a lamb chop and a bacon wrapped steak, and the chocolate dessert was simply fabulous.

We had the head of the ship's Beverage and Food service eating at our table along with 3 other guests.  The conversation was good as we learned about each other and our past cruises. 

What a great event to experience!

After the luncheon, Katie's friend Becca and I did lawn bowling and a golf putting contest.  I came in 2nd at lawn bowling.  I love these sporting events!

After dinner we attended a show by the Extravaganza Duo, a pair of violinists from Ukraine.  They were excellent and played a wide range of music, including one country and western number. 

So it was a busy and very enjoyable day.

Tomorrow we are at St Thomas, our first port of this cruise.